Thursday, July 08, 2004

Inspiration drought

Ususally, I have no problem with filling dozens of pages with text. But I do now. The last few weeks, I've related Habermas´s notion of the public sphere to blogs and to blogging (that's presumably what my dissertation is all about). I've read tons, thought, taken notes and made a mindmap of ideas on paper. But now, when I should transmit these thoughts to an article (my first...), my fingers freeze. Perhaps I'm distracted by the fact that the rock festival Ruisrock hits my town this weekend, or the sunny weather, or the fact that I've got a job interview tomorrow. Whatever the reason, it truly is an odd experience.

I've read somewhere (my memory fails here so unfortunately, I can't provide a link) that instead of being afraid that one's article isn't good enough, and thus holding on to and improving it forever, one should keep writing and publishing many texts as this is how you learn. You're better off being Woody Allen, who's produced 39 quite enjoyable movies since 1965, than Renny Harlin who stakes big time on a movie from time to time, but with a mediocre result.

In my search for inspiration, I googled and found that "things around me" is what gets people's creative motor going. That's quite general but I guess it could to the trick. It sure works for Manu Chao. I saw the re-run of a documentary of him last night. He says that for a song to be born, the things that are right there under his nose must inspire him, and preferably within five minutes. If he is inspired within this period of time, there will be a track. If not, he drops the whole thing. Considering how brilliant his albums are, it seems like a good creativity plan.